Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-One: A Meeting with a Rocket Scientist (Patreon)

“Belessar, we have visitors,” Dr. Palmer announced.

I looked up from where I was working on HEPAR number 276. “Important?”

“Your friend Commodore Pemberley and a colleague of mine from BAE’s R&D division. I wondered if you could drop by for a few minutes?”

“Sure.”

Molly Pemberley was waiting in the conference room Sarah led me to, along with a grey-haired gentleman in a tweed jacket. “This is Dr. Lawrence Atwood, head of Reaction Engines PLC, one of BAE’s subsidiaries in rocket technology and propulsion.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Doctor. How can I help?”

Molly spoke up. “You used some very powerful missiles at Singapore. Missiles that took out Hierarchy strikecraft in a single hit.”

Ah, I’d wondered when that might come up. “I have complete control over the missiles at all times; nobody else can fire them.”

“I’m not concerned about the missiles, Belessar. We know you were working on something to fight Carnotaurs - were these a variant?”

“They’re the same missile. I have a low-powered variant for less dangerous opponents, and a high-powered model for Carnotaurs and other highly armoured opponents. Like the Grizzeloid tank.”

“You use the same missile for surface-to-surface and surface-to-air applications.” Dr. Atwood spoke up.

“Yes.”

“Mind if I ask a few, er, detailed questions?”

“Go ahead. I’m assuming Commodore Pemberley will step on anything too secret.”

Molly snorted. “Atwood’s security clearance is higher than mine. It’s likely the other way around.”

I revised my estimation of the scientist upwards a notch. “Doctor, are you an actual rocket scientist?”

“I’m afraid so. Although you’ll find we’re quite normal most of the time.”

“Apart from the Fourier transforms and Riemann integrals, you mean.”

Atwood chuckled. “You’ve done your calculus, I see. Yes, we deal with fairly complex math, but I’ll save that discussion for later. What I wanted to get a look at is your missile design, if that’s okay.”

“If you can reverse-engineer it, I’ll want a percentage. Of missiles produced.”

“No worries. Reaction Engines is owned by BAE, much like your own firm, and your endorsement will be a huge help in actually selling the Belessar-class missiles.”

“They’re actually called Starfall missiles.”

“The Starfall missiles, then. Quite an evocative name. How exactly do you propel them?”

“Antigravity thruster of my own design.”

“Hmm, not actually rocket fuel then. That explains much.”

I frowned. “Are my missiles really that much more effective? Any half-decent military can pack a hundred kilos of high explosive into a rocket.”

“The issue isn’t the warhead, Belessar. Our missiles are based on fuel-powered rockets, which means their range - and speed - is limited by the amount of fuel you can pack into one. More fuel, more range, but more weight as well; and there’s a hard limit to how fast you can accelerate a rocket.”

“Why?”

“Rockets are driven by superheated gas flushed out at a very high speed. Higher acceleration needs higher temperatures for the fuel. You see the problem?”

“... no?”

“Too much heat and the rocket melts in mid-flight.”

Huh. “I don’t have that problem…”

“Because you don’t use propellant, you manipulate gravity. The best acceleration we can manage in a missile is about 40 g’s. We analyzed video of your missile launches in Singapore… you hit the Strikecraft at only a few hundred metres of range, if I’m not mistaken?”

“The near ones, yes.”

“From what we can understand, your missile hit a peak velocity of over six thousand metres per second. That’s Mach 19. The best human air-to-air missiles today can do Mach 5, Mach 6 at best. So you see, I am very interested in knowing how we can duplicate that performance.”

I hadn’t realized my missiles were THAT fast…

“Also, since you hit peak velocity in less than a tenth of a second - the thrust on your missiles would have to be at 6,300 g’s.”

“Are you sure?”

The rocket scientist cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Sorry, Dr. Atwood. I never actually sat down and did the velocity calculations…. I probably should have.”

“The troops nearest to you reported being hit by a massive shockwave just after you launched,” Pemberley added. “The effect of your missiles violently breaching the sound barrier was heard well into the city.”

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“Luckily, since the Roar of the Carnotaur incident, standard equipment for all troops now includes helmets and audio suppressors. Nobody was hurt, except in the regimental laundry budgets.”

“Dr. Atwood, is there any way I can help you get this tech into the mainstream?”

“Let’s see what we can do,” grinned the scientist.

For the next hour, Atwood asked me dozens of questions about how the antigrav thrusters worked, how much energy a Heavy Power Pack carried, and a host of other points.

After a while, he started sketching integrals on the conference table with a felt tipped pen, followed by more probing questions which stretched everything I’d learnt in AP Calculus to the limit. Finally, the man sat down with a frown. “We have a long way to go before we can make your antigravity thruster mass-producible.”

“Is it really that hard?”

“We don’t have a working theory of antigravity, so yes, it actually is. That’s the reason we stuck with rocket-propelled missiles for so long.”

“I still don’t get it. Can’t the normal NATO missiles shoot down Hierarchy strikecraft?”

“Strikecraft regularly breach Mach 15,” Pemberley explained, “and they maneuver fast enough that a missile sent at them head-on can often miss. The Hierarchy tracking computers are fiendishly good at spotting our missiles and shooting them down with point-defense lasers. Also, missiles take nearly a full second to accelerate to top speed. Less than ten per cent of air-to-air missiles fired at a Strikecraft actually hit.”

“And when they hit, they mostly take down the shield?”

“Exactly. To get to a point where I’m doing damage to the craft, I need to hit it twice. Surface-to-air hit ratios are even worse. The best weapon we have is the Lancelot air defense laser cannon. Zero flight time, and a single shot can burn through the shields and still have enough oomph left over to scratch the paint.”

“Which brings up an interesting opportunity,” suggested Atwood. “The main limitation to the Lancelot’s power has always been the capacitor.”

“The what?”

“The charge capacitor is part of the Lancelot cannon and stores the energy that goes into the shot. The current design of the capacitor allows it to hold roughly 85 megajoules that can be put into each shot. I think that the Heavy Power Pack could be a good substitute for the capacitor.”

“The Lancelot cannon does 500,000 damage with each shot…” The numbers danced through my head. “With a 85 MJ capacitor?”

“Yes.”

“... Each Heavy Power Pack can hold 1200 MJ.”

“Hence the opportunity. The trick will be to get the cooling up and running, but I suspect that you might be able to solve for that too. How much ‘damage’, as you call it, will a shot from that do, you think?”

I quickly did the numbers in my head. “Seven point two million - enough to take down any strikecraft in a single shot.”

“The Lancelot has a 35% hit rate, and a thirty-second charge time,” Pemberley said. “How much would your Heavy Power Pack cost?”

“About five hundred pounds or so?”

Atwood and Pemberley exchanged glances. “That’s a 25% reduction in the cost per unit,” said the pilot. “Significantly scaleable.”

“If it can support fast discharges,” pointed out the scientist. “Belessar, how quickly could you drain out the entire charge of a Heavy Power Pack? And how much time would it take to recharge?”

I thought about a moment above the skies of London, and skydiving into a Greater Carnotaur. “Less than a microsecond.”

“That could work. I helped Asmodraxus design the Lancelot before he got called to Skyguard; I’ll reconnect with my old colleagues in Raytheon and bounce the idea off them. Thank you, Belessar.”

As the scientists left, I signalled for Pemberley’s attention. “I need a favour, Commodore.”

“Sure, Belessar. What’s up.”

“Can you get MI6 to investigate Mayor Aldiss of Tanisport?”

Pemberley’s expression froze. “Belessar, we can’t just spy on an allied foreign official.”

“I need a discreet investigation into his finances. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“What exactly do you suspect?”

“A possible linkage with the Grunters.”

“Belessar, you know we can’t actively participate in the anti-Grunter investigation.”

“You helped me trace out the Esperanzas…”

“And you ended up making a girlfriend out of Agni as a result, so I’d say MI6 has helped you enough. Come on, Belessar, don’t put me in this position.”

I shrugged. “All I know is that reliable sources have flagged him as a suspicious character.”

“And is there a reason you can’t ask this of the Americans directly?”

“Well… you know, Britain has always been very cooperative.”

“More so than your own country, you mean. Again, your FBI is better suited to this.”

“One of the folks who tipped me off is in law enforcement himself. They can’t find any evidence, just … odd behaviour. Also, he may be using a black-market psychic repulsion field…”

“An ‘ignore-me’ field, you mean?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Using that isn’t illegal, you know. I’ll kick it up the chain, but I can't promise you anything more than that.”